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Various Breads and Butters

By B.R. Cohen and Simon Tonev

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Description

B.R. Cohen and Simon Tonev talk with guests on the internet's premier podcast about small college life. Based at Lafayette College's WJRH, the show is set in academic culture but usually not about it. Michelle Polton-Simon is our producer. Follow us @somelaterdate and find us on Facebook.

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Clean111: (Violent) Remains of the Day with Monica

Anthropologist Monica Salas Landa is on the show. She’s not violent, mind you, the title’s a reference to her book title, you’ll get to that part about halfway in. Simon couldn’t decide on a title, this is on him. But the show, you were asking a

The head coach of the Lafayette football team is here. It’s John Garrett, entering his second year, bringing a lifetime of football playing and coaching to bear, giving us some of the ins and outs, walking us through the NFL, the WFL, the collegiate r

Poet, science studies scholar, author, English professor, world traveler Megan Fernandes is here. From Canadian origins to Philly, from Santa Barbara to Boston, from Paris to Montreal, from Manhattan to Easton, her path is paved. From Tin House to Ploug

Our guest is Chris Hunt, the Dean of Equity and Inclusion. See how the episode title matches? We talk small college life in Pennsylvania, Lafayette changes (or not) over the years, TSA agents, Mac’n’Cheese recipes, student concerns, and so on. Then

A lot of history about the Marquis de Lafayette here, a lot, because our guest, Director for Special Collections & College Archives Diane Shaw, knows more about the Marquis than any of us. He had 7 or 8 first names. Did you know that? He was America’s

Easton’s Mayor Sal Panto, Jr. is on the show. Believe it or not. The Mayor. We get a lot of local history, we hear about what it’s like mayoring, there’s some town-gown chatter about the college and the city, Simon has a pretty decent joke about s

Syllabus: Birds, ornithology, science, biology, home brewing, animals, a new restaurant, city streets, Byrds, Idaho, Arizona, and such. It’s all with Mike Butler, professor in the biology department. Then with the music and the quiz and follow us on t

You know to cut the green wire, right? You know evil overlords just sit there all day, right? You know Simon can’t Quantum Leap into a 1962 stand-up set, right? So you maybe don’t need this episode. But here we are anyway. It’s a guest-less new ye

Syllabus: coffee, chemistry, chemical engineering, atmospheric science, aerosol, The NYC. It’s Joe Woo, a good guy, a gifted teacher, and a lifelong New Yorker but for these past three years at Lafayette. I had a poppy seed bagel the other day and the

Season 3 begins: weirdness and/in college, Russian literature, history, sneezing etiquette, new interns, old Scandinavia, some music and passion…with guest Lindsay Ceballos of the Russian and Eastern European Studies (REES) program and host of our WJR

CleanOne from the Vault: Ep53 with Monks and 13th c. Armenian Black Magic

The hiatus continues while Simon and Ben continue the search for the lost episodes. Thanks to listeners who suggested looking behind the couch. Like we hadn’t thought of that. They weren’t there. In the meantime, check back with Rachel Goshgarian in

This is a rebroadcast of "Episode 61: Recorded Under Protest" (with Alan Childs), one of our all-time most popular episodes. Yes, we're into reruns during this temporary hiatus as we finish putting together our team for the new season. Here's a Demetri

Syllabus: Comedian Glen Tickle joins us. Graduate of Ramapo College and native of the Lehigh Valley; haver of thoughts on trying stand-up for the first time, McRib economics, Muppets and Fraggle Rock excellence, sheetcake politics, Harvey Danger, and Ne

Even imaginary penises on quilts are pretty bad to the traditionalists, we learn. But our guest, mathematician and nationally renowned quilter Chawne Kimber, is no traditionalist. We talk math, Florida, quilts, knitting, art, politics, cotton. We quiz,

The show has guest hosts. Recent graduates and esteemed interns Will “Madison Square” Gordon and Ian “Code” Morse take the mics to interview very special guests B.R. Cohen and Simon Tonev. Isn’t that something. And Michelle is there to produce

If you don’t already love lava, you will after this. If you already love lava, you’re in luck. Our guest is geologist Tamara Carley, a Volcanologist. She used to live by Mt. St. Helens; then she lived with Taylor Swift. Boom. Now she globe-trots and

Our guest studies deception, or lying, or dishonesty, or insincerity in the workplace. He’s David Shulman, Professor of Sociology at Lafayette. After telling us about going to Detective School in Chicagoland so he could study the police, and some chit

The Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Michael Witmore, is our guest. He does yeoman’s work to guide us down the Bard’s path. The highbrow character of the episode doesn’t prevent a round of 10/20/30 music; another quiz; some Fri/Sun; and

Is it VBB’s biggest fan? Will others contest? As is our motto, We broadcast; you decide. John Lach of U.Va. is the guest. Electrical and Computer Engineer, longtime friend of one of the co-hosts (the better one), a native Wisconsian, a Science, Techno

Surfing and sustainability, there’s a lot of that in this episode. We talk to our third in a trinity of alumni guests, Joel Cesare Lafayette Class of ’04. Sustainable Building Advisor in the Office of Sustainability and the Environment for the City

DefCons 1-5 or 5-1 precede an affably ambling chat with Interim Coordinator in Lafayette’s Office of Intercultural Development (the ICLCOID, “The Icklecoid”) Liam O’Donnell. He’s a new father, he works on three great podcasts of his own (Cinep

The history of Easton, our town, through the eyes of one of Lafayette’s most experienced alum, Danny Cohen, Class of ’65 (and no relation to the co-host). The idyll of the 1950s, economic downturn of the ‘70s, recovery in the ‘00s, it’s that k

Producer Emeritus, computer scientist, and Lafayette alum Renan Sequitur Dincer makes it to the interview room. Finally. He’s never been a guest, how about that. We talk about leaving Europe to go to Asia for school, what Christian missionaries were d

[recorded in December] From the XPrize to Lafayette College to West Africa to Philadelphia to a life devoted to human rights, global women’s issues, African history, and music and infectious joy, we talk to Dr. Emily Musil Church. There’s a quiz, th

How does college work? Dean of Students Paul McLoughlin explains it, more or less. Organizing student life, meal plans, student conduct, Galaga in the student union, from Ohio to Vermont to Florida to Massachusetts to Pennsylvania. Then it’s the usual

Finance, money, cash, scholarships, lucre, dough, moola, large, bones, bread. We talk to Ashley Bianchi, Director of Financial Aid and native Mississippian about it all, or some of it, it’s more like some of it. It comes up, let’s just say that. Plu

We finally have a mathematician on the show, Rob Root. He and his daughter, Gina, join us to talk social justice, numbers, math, maths, equations, sharks, obscure Vassar references, some math jokes, conjectures, math stuff, and math. We have a double ro

Lots of Broadway, musicals, acting, and theater talk with the inestimable Mary Jo Lodge, professor in the Theater Department at Lafayette. This one makes us look cultured. This one has loads of Broadway references. I guess we already said that. This one

John Hodgman is the guest. You probably got that from the title. The Daily Show, The Areas of My Expertise, The New York Times Magazine, HBO's Bored to Death, Amazon's Red Oaks, commercials about PCs and Macs--he's got a long credit list. We practice gr

This one has a lot of computer talk and communications talk and baseball talk, because John O’Keefe is the guest and he is Lafayette College’s Chief Information Officer and, currently, the Interim Vice President of Communications and also a baseball

Senior Editor/Writer for The Onion, recent digital director for Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and the author of two books is on the show. He’s Jason Roeder and we have to guess he thought this was a much more popular show when he agreed to the inter

This one’s an environmental episode. We have Andrea Armstrong from Environmental Studies. We talk about water (big part of the environment) and correctly eating fruit (more environment), swans and ducks (they live in nature) and watersheds (guess wher

On the docket: Empty coffee cups (#emptycupawards), advising the undergraduate and the modern parent, hypnotized orientations, the amenities race, famous locals, Fridays, Sundays, and right turns, all with Dean Erica D’Agostino, after some chatter wit

Producer Emeritus Renan finished his bucket list in ostensibly dramatic fashion, on the very last day of his college career, with the help of a past guest. Let's hear the story, with Ep70 guest Jonathan Lafky (a different past guest) on board for the re

We finally have an economist on the show, Jonathan Lafky of Carleton College (née Lafayette College). He’s a behavioral economist, studying on-line rating systems, pondering celebrity guest lecturers, selling us a dollar, showing off lake-naming and

There’s a lot of pizza talk here, we won’t lie, with a stab at the Chuck E. Cheese origin story plus video games. We debut a new segment, in fact: How to play Galaga. Then our guest, Amir Sadovnik, of the Computer Science department, helps out. That

The guys from Poorly Summarized are here for Round 2 of The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons. We address New Yorkers self-applauding their cultural features; they answer the show’s longest running question: how do other people know we exist?; we all get m

Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Men's Journal, New York, The New Yorker, GQ, The New Republic, and ESPN: The Magazine. Stephen Rodrick’s written for more magazines than we have listeners. He’s interviewed everyone from Ringo Starr to Ser

Pet names, band names, newspapers, websites, student government, students, governments. We charge on with student guesthood by talking to the (plausible) future president of the United States and the (possible) future editor of the New York Times. That

The topics: on-line eyeglasses; Russian history in Maine; the lobster equivalence; golf; baseball; baseball; pens; etc., with the superb Prof. Josh Sanborn. “When I was a child, there were times when we had to entertain ourselves. And usually the best

She writes books, she teaches fiction, she’s got screenwriting all about, she’s Canadian, she understands slap bets. She’s Prof. Alix Ohlin and your day just got better. Listen to the end for a secret code to win a prize. Thanks to Renan and Miche

If you like edible food, this is not the episode for you. If you like hot dogs, then yes, come on in. Prof. Alan Childs joins us. He’s a psychologist. Social psychology, healthcare psychology, that kind of stuff. Then there’s that whole thing about

There’s a lot of McSweeney’s talk here, with their long-time web editor John Warner on the line. We talk about other stuff too, garbage disposals included, hot dogs and ice cream stores, naturally. Thanks to Renan and Michelle for producing and inte

When you get to the end, there’s an organic recipe for kombucha free of charge. Before that, political scientist Joel Shelton sheds light on things that were less lighted before the light shedding began. Ziplines, velcro hair, Monopoly, the EU, Swarth

The student brain, we try to figure it out. Or take a first crack at it, at least. With Student Jake Garber this episode works through chapters to:
Drink water, a lot
Arrive late to public talks
Wear sweats
Run down the text/e-mail/call chain
Thank

Lafayette’s President Alison Byerly is our guest. She debriefs on it all: Crooners come under fire. Canadians also have bands. College Presidents binge shows too, but not so much. Victorian lit and sit-coms and Harry Potter, maybe not so different. Th

Cars should not hit buildings. Airlines should fly east only. High school jobs don’t pay well, or at all. Maine is uniquely mono-syllabic. Curanderismo is fascinating. Anyone can play two bars of Beethoven. Just wait, you’ll see, with our guest Prof

What do you know about monasteries? Read that like a sneer, like, what do youknow about them? Our guest Prof. Rachel Goshgarian can tell you how to do research there, read up on 13th c. Armenian black magic, and stay in Venice for $30 a night. Not to me

F-shaped reading, pupil tracking, 7th grade math in Brooklyn, how many degrees one person can have, way too much about the nation’s liberal arts colleges, audience favorite Friday/Sunday, and then something about bikes, who can keep track. In other wo

This is a special bonus episode of the show—our first bonusode—in the “One Question” style. We talk to ethics professor (and future full-ep guest) Owen McLeod about Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, morality, and art. We couldn’t actually stick to our

It’s the last days of Vietnam, orthodontia, a philosophy of technology, the very laughable two factor authentication, weird mascots, another vote for Friday, and substantial minor league baseball coverage with, of course, our guest Jason Alley, Direct

It’s finally shark week on the show so we welcome Kathleen Parrish, Journalism Professor and Director of Content Strategy at Lafayette College, to help us navigate it. Not just sharks, but a question-off, coffee, opera, Bryan Cranston, cigar bar stand

With thanks to our guest Annette Diorio, VP of Campus Life at Lafayette College, and of course our intrepid producer Renan Dincer. We'd also like to commend Saxelby Arusha and DiPalo Durban for their fine field work.

Customer Reviews

Witty conversations

I've listened to VBB yesterday on my drive to work. It's lovely to have Simin and Ben in the car with me. Loved the episode with the Shark Woman.

Review

by
315Listener

I love this podcast! Their humor makes any topic fun and interesting. And believe me, they will talk about things you didn't even know people could talk about. Keep up the great work!

Run, don't walk to the download button

by
Maverick187

You're familiar with Cheech and Chong, Burns and Allen, the Captain and Tenille...well move over, there's a new crew in town and their name is VBB. I just downloaded the entire series. Probably going to burn it to CDs for stocking stuffers this year. Can't wait for the holiday special and the raffle.